Gloom and Bloom

"Gloomiest March on record", "coldest April on record", "coldest spring for 75 years"; these are phrases you don’t want to see in the newspaper describing the time of year when we look for sunshine and warming temperatures.  In fact a front page headline on the weekend began with "May, May, go away". Yes, it is way better than floods, tornadoes, earthquakes and other freaks of nature. Absolutely better. But I may have mentioned at some point that I can be just a titch whiney and this spring has given me lots of practise. I’ve had plenty of company as it seems the whole city is grumbling, people are cranky, patio restaurants are suffering, gardens are mouldering, real estate isn’t moving, and we are way overdue for a change in the jet stream.

But it’s Victoria, so how bad can it be. This weekend there was the annual Swiftsure yacht race, the inaugural Tour de Victoria, the World Partnership Walk, the Uplands Pro-Am Golf tournament, and a bazillion other activities to enjoy. And it wasn’t even a holiday weekend.

We’ve had friends staying with us and Saturday we went to Finnerty Gardens at UVic. It’s about 6 weeks later than we would normally go, (see the first paragraph whine) but we were reminded yet again of what a spectacular garden it is and how many truly beautiful places there are in this little corner of the globe.

Does anyone know what this tree is? The all-lined-up structure is quite endearing.

a coral coloured azalea

Alan's hands and the big rhodo clusters. Some shrubs sag under the weight

Believe it or not this monster is a peony. That's my hand in the phot, for scale.

Another beautifully structured tree, this one a green Japanese Maple. 

These bamboo are about 25 feet tall and gorgeous.  We spent some time on Saturday  on a search and destroy mission in our bamboo patch because this is the season that it runs rampant

a healthy Arbutus in bloom while many are dying from a canker disease